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U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (L) shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama prior to their meeting at the latter's official residence in Tokyo October 21, 2009. Gates on Wednesday pressed Japan to quickly implement a troop realignment deal that could test ties with Tokyo's month-old government.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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By Jonathan Day
TOKYO, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert M. Gates, the first U.S. Cabinet member to visit Japan since the new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government took office, left two days of security meetings with senior Japanese officials on Tuesday and Wednesday adamant that bilateral security arrangements between the two countries should remain in place.
The two-day trip by the Pentagon's number one was to lay the groundwork for U.S. President Barack Obama's planned visit to Japan on Nov. 12 and 13, during which time the President is expected to show that Washington values the importance of its relationship with Japan's newly formed government.
However Gates' unwavering stance on the DPJ's interest in re-examining the 2006 U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment and Implementation, which outlines a wholesale strategic repositioning of U.S. forces in Okinawa, may have quashed the Japanese government's hopes of reaching an alternative agreement and, perhaps more significantly, given the Japanese premier some pause over his party's hopes for more "equal Japan-U.S. ties" and his pledge to steer the nation on a diplomatic course less dependent on security alliances with the U.S.
Broad plans to reorganize U.S. forces in Japan were agreed upon in 2006 when Japan's Liberal Democratic Party still held sway. The agreement included plans to move thousands of U.S. forces from southern Okinawa, consolidate numerous bases, build a new runway to the north at Camp Schwab to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, and relocate 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam.
The crux of the plan was ultimately to relocate U.S. service members from the heavily populated southern part of Okinawa and reduce the troops and their "footprint" on the island from 18,000 to 10,000.
The Futenma relocation issue emerged as a major sticking point in Gates' two-day talks with the new Japanese government who are seeking to relocate the Futenma facility outside of Okinawa, or even outside Japan to lessen base-hosting burdens on the local population -- a proposal cited by U.S. officials as potentially "testing ties with Japan's new government."
Gates called the existing realignment accord "the best alternative for everyone" and warned Tokyo against revoking the pact, saying the failure to implement it would mean "no consolidation of forces and return of land in Okinawa" and even pointed to alternatives as contravening an agreement which took years to reach.
"We've looked over the years at all these alternatives and they are either politically untenable or operationally unworkable, so we need to proceed with the agreement as negotiated," Gates said. "There really are no alternatives to the arrangement that was negotiated."
Specifically, Gates pointed to difficulties in moving the Futenma heliport functions to the nearby Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, citing operational and logistical reasons.
